Sticks, stones, words and forgiveness

Matthew 6:12 (NLT) “..and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who sin against us..” – Jesus.

“As long as you hate (someone) you give that person control of your life. …It (forgiveness) doesn’t happen over night but when it does it opens up a whole world of possibilities.” (From a TV show, I don’t remember which one.)

I am still working on forgiveness of certain people from my old church. I don’t want to forgive them most of the time, but I know I should. Why should I forgive someone who did verbal injury to a family member when they deserved support instead of condemnation and gossip?

The verbal injury was so deep it has caused my family member to question God to the point of almost losing faith in Him. And those same people who did the injury are quick to say “There is no excuse for anyone to walk away (from the church which in their mind equals walking away from God).” There is also no excuse for treating people the way they do.

Good News: Forgiveness is healing. But it is so hard. It must be hard for the other person to acknowledge what they said or did so it must also be hard for them to forgive their “target.” It works both ways. Sometimes it seems that we can forgive without going to that other person and telling them – they probably would not understand why you need to forgive them and you would have to explain and it might start all over again. All the pain. Or maybe not, but it would be too frustrating to have to explain when you think they ought to know.

More Good News: With forgiveness comes healing – maybe not right away, but slowly and then one day you wake up and think “I forgive that person.” And then you might wonder why it took so long. The old adage should be rewritten “Sticks and stones will break bones which heal in a few weeks, but words hurt for a long, long time and are far more hurtful than a broken bone.”

Someday maybe all the hurt won’t hurt so much and when I think of those people and the harm they have done I won’t have all those bad thoughts going through my mind. It is getting a little better.

After Hardship Comes Ease

Verily, after hardship comes ease. ~ Quran 94:6.

What we are not told is that the “ease” after we leave an abusive church (or other situation) may be awhile coming. It does not (usually) happen the moment  we walk out the door of that church.

I think the “ease” comes once we can start to forgive people for what they did to us and our families. That can take a long time sometimes. For me I am still working on it. Distance in time between me and the time I left (November 2012) is making things easier. Once I stepped away from that group of people and got my mind started thinking without the United Pentecostal Church glasses on, things seemed better.

One thing for me was that the last couple of years I was thinking “Where is Jesus in all of this?” I was losing sight of my Savior and was believing that the whole church had lost sight of him too. Preaching seemed to be all about hair, clothes, standards, tithing. Things that have nothing to do with salvation. I realized that I had bitten into the apple of a belief system that was not healthy. Gossip was rampant. People strived to be like the Pastor or his wife, not like Jesus. It was automatically thought that if you leave the building, The Church, you are leaving God. Because God can only live in a church where “All the Truth” is told. It isn’t so.

I left to reconnect with God. To see Him the way I did before I joined this cultish religion. Once out of the confines of a place I once thought of as a safe haven, a place to be with God, I discovered once again that He is everywhere all at once all the time.

Yes, things are getting easier day by day. But I still have more of my road to travel.

Choices

As I began asking questions, searching for groups online that might help, and looking for some answers, it troubled me to see how many times frustrated believers were encouraged to stay bitter toward a bad situation, and how many were directed to give up on God or their faith because of what a person or group of people did wrong. It also disturbed me that people thought I was leaving God because I was leaving a certain location with four walls. God is much bigger than a church building.

I didn’t want to leave. I loved church. Its sad when people feel they need to leave something they have loved. But sometimes we have to leave one thing to reach for something better. Life is full of leavings, after all. We leave our home to begin school. We leave our childhood as we become teens. We leave high school friends and family when we move to college. We leave college life to enter the workforce. We leave parents and siblings to get married. We watch our children grow and begin to leave us- going to kindergarten, jr. high, high school, college, and getting married as well. Through all of these leavings though, we can keep our character, and most importantly, we can keep our faith. We can’t keep God. He can’t be kept. But He can keep us.

When we leave the things I named above, we leave in order to grow. I pray, I hope, that its the same with church. There are many good things that I’ve learned as an Apostolic. I treasure those things. But I’ve been brought to a point, for now, that demands a leaving. To stay meant to compromise my beliefs and my conscience, and so would have meant to compromise myself and my God. Like in all other leavings though, I can go with God.

No matter what happens in life, we have choices to make. How to respond, how to react, what to say. We can choose to keep believing; that’s what faith is, after all- the choice to believe. And I choose faith. I didn’t choose to be hurt, but I did choose, for a while, to stay in a bad situation. It was my choice, and not something to be angry or bitter about. Definitely not something to leave God for. It was my choice, and I don’t regret it.

God loves us. Broken, hurt, wounded, even angry or bitter… and He still loves those who have hurt us, too. He asks them to change. Whether they do or not is not in our control. He asks us to forgive– not to stay in a bad situation, but also not to stay angry. Anger has its place. It is a good emotion for awhile, but eventually a person has to grow around anger or let it consume them. I choose growth.

I’m thankful for all those whose experience has been with good churches and good pastors. I hope most people never experience the things that some have. Still, within or without the walls of a Pentecostal (or any other church) we have choices to make. We are not exempted from choices by sitting on a pew. Nor are we freed from those choices by leaving one.

I hope those who have had trouble realize they don’t have to give up on God. I pray they take the time to untangle faith from religion. They are both valuable in their place, but when I was forced to choose one or neither, I chose God. And I’m glad. He’s not the one that hurt me. God is a gentleman- he will not force someone to do right. When we are wronged, that is not God and it is not the devil, it is a human being making poor choices. I can’t change their choices, but I can make choices of my own that will counter the affect of their choices in my life. Its my choice. And I choose God.

Forgiveness

This issue of forgiveness is one that periodically has been difficult to discuss in our main support group. There are many who are pretty hurt and at the time they feel there is no way they can forgive.

Some have become upset when I have shared the importance of forgiveness. Some who have been hurt in a church feel the offender must come to them and admit their wrong or ask for forgiveness first before they should forgive them. I disagree. Your chances of getting an apology from spiritually abusive leadership is slim to none.

I believe that forgiveness as a Christian is not an option. Yes, that means no matter how hurt one was. Yes, that means even if the hurt was deliberate and with intent. Jesus taught that we must forgive and if we refuse to forgive, then our own sins will not be forgiven.

We could look at this subject from a few angles. Jesus did not die for just some people’s sins. He took upon Himself the sins of all humanity. He paid the full price for those sins. If we will allow Him into our lives, He washes us clean from any and all wrongdoing we did. How are we viewing His sacrifice when we refuse to forgive? Think about it. Are we saying that what Jesus did wasn’t enough? That somehow the price should be greater for some people? (Of course not us, mind you.)

With this in mind, who are we to tell anyone they will not be forgiven? We didn’t pay the price, Jesus did. We didn’t even pay the price for our own sins. If it were not for the grace of God, would we not have many sins for which we’d have to give account? Because of this, should believers withhold forgiveness from others?

Remember when Jesus told those who had caught the woman in adultery that whoever was without sin, that person could cast the first stone to have her killed, as the law allowed? There was only one there who could have started the stone throwing, and that was Jesus. We all have been in need of forgiveness. We have all been in need of mercy. Should we not then extend this to those who have wronged us?

If we refuse to forgive and desire to harbor this in our hearts, doesn’t that person yet have control or influence over us? Things like this do affect us, whether or not we realize it. Forgiveness actually does more for you than it does for the person being forgiven.

Forgiving doesn’t mean it didn’t or doesn’t hurt. Forgiving doesn’t mean you have to trust the person again or renew any relationship. Forgiving doesn’t mean being a doormat, allowing yourself to be used over and over. Forgiving doesn’t mean that the person has no possible consequences to face.

Forgiving does mean it releases that person from you and also releases you from that person.

It greatly angers me at times when I see what the religious system has done to people. That doesn’t mean I hate the people in it or that I do not forgive them. Many people yet inside do things because it is all they know to do, with some parroting behaviors of others. Some have no idea how much they hurt people. Others do not realize the error they teach.

I changed during my involvement in an unhealthy church. I became judgmental and I am sure there were times I hurt people. I needed forgiveness for those things. And so do the people yet involved.

Some might respond, “Some people say, ‘Forgive and forget.’ Only God is truly able to do that. Yet, even with forgiveness, the Bible demands restitution.”

I don’t believe we are told to forget. We are human and have memories. Jesus remembered how Peter had denied him three times. Paul remembered that Demas had forsaken him. Even if we tried hard to forget, something on occasion would trigger the memory.

As to restitution, the Bible speaks of it but I don’t see where it is for us to demand. Restitution may not always be possible. For instance, how exactly does an abusive minister give restitution for giving someone a warped view of God or for causing people to follow teachings that were man-made? What about those who are no longer alive? How does someone do this when they don’t yet realize they are wrapped up in an abusive church environment and have a wrong mindset?

Doesn’t the Bible say that with what judgment we give, we will be dealt with the same? Do you not need forgiveness? Have you ever hurt anyone? Could you have hurt someone and not realized it? Would you not want that person to forgive you?

I know what it is like to have your reputation smeared. While I was in the United Pentecostal Church I had a good rep. After I left, my former pastor and some others periodically did things to try and tarnish my reputation. I have to live with the lies as sometimes you just cannot break from the cloud someone has placed over your head. Some people will always believe what they hear and never look into the veracity of what a pastor proclaims.

I learned that you cannot go running around trying to clear your name all the time. Much as we don’t like it and it hurts us inside, doing so causes us to lose our proper focus. God knows. He will not be made to believe any lies.

It may be difficult and take awhile, but we should all move toward the goal of being able to forgive those who hurt us.

Below is a video clip with a song about forgiveness. Perhaps it will help someone to realize the importance of forgiveness.

Forgiveness from Kenneth V. Jones on Vimeo.

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God’s Love, My Trust

…It’s not a matter of whether I love God, but of whether I know he loves me, and what my understanding of that love is.

If you love me, let go of the hurt.

But justice…

No, let go. Do you not know that as deeply as you are hurt right now, as angry as you are about the injustice done, I am more? You are my child. Give it to me. Let me go seek out the troublesome one. Let me take care of this for you. I love you. I don’t want you to hurt. Just as the father would seek out those who hurt his daughter, so I will seek out those who hurt you, my daughter.

I’ve never known that kind of parent.

It’s ok. Let me be that father to you. Let my love flourish in you, cover you, protect you, heal you. Let go of your right—

But I do have a right!

Yes, you do, as a human who was treated unjustly. But you do not have that right as my child. As one who is truly mine, relinquish that right. Just as a bullied child cheers her dad for going and dealing with the bully for her, let me be your hero. Let me take care of this. Yield it to me. Trust me. Let me love you. In our relationship, the right is not yours. It is mine. And that is also love.

It’s not a matter of “forgive and forget”. It’s not a matter of forgiving at all. However, vengeance is not mine. I can speak out, I can defend myself and others, I can help others to understand. These things are right. But carrying what has happened, keeping it in the front of my mind, seeking vengeance, these are not what’s best for me. And so he asks me and others to do the impossible, to run to him after we’ve been hurt by people who’ve used his name wrongly, to see past what they said about him and trust.

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